Unified Pictures Prepares '55 Holly Star'

Western flicks aren't the only theme recently jump-started by Hollywood. The Hollywood Reporter has posted that Unified Pictures is gearing up to produce a new "Capra-esque" film called 55 Holly Star. The script was penned, and will be helmed, by Michael A. Nickles -- the actor/writer/director who has popped up in films like License to Drive, and is the man behind other productions like Desert Winds and This Is Not a Film. The movie reportedly focuses on "a down-on-his-luck man who, in a desperate search to decipher the dying words of his grandfather, turns his life upside down." So, probably more in the vein of It's a Wonderful Life, than my favorite dark Capra piece, Arsenic and Old Lace.

Unified founder and producer Keith Kjarval says: "This is a story that has excited us for some time with its unique and fresh slant on a familiar romantic theme." How romance ties into this desperate search is anyone's guess. Does his search help lead him back to a lost love, or help him find a new one? Who knows. We'll have to wait for all those small little bits to come out as each actor is announced and more news is released. In the meantime, Nickles has a variety of films on the way -- he penned Bunyan and Babe, which I previously blogged about here, and the upcoming XII, which he also directed. The former teams John Goodman and Eddie Griffin for a full-scale family film, while the latter is an adult thriller starring Mercedes McNab -- the tow-headed vampire Harmony from Buffy and Angel.